Spanish TLC; Strange Horizons Review of ZT
Posted on March 25, 2009 Posted by John Scalzi 13 Comments
Another Minotauro edition of one of my books, another pretty damn kick-ass cover. This one is for the Spanish edition of The Last Colony, although I note they went ahead and called it “The Lost Colony,” which formalizes in Spanish a common flub of the title in English. I don’t mind.
I’ll note that when I was at the Tools of Change conference in New York in February, a Minotauro rep came up and introduced himself, and the first thing out of my mouth was “Dude, I love the covers you guys put on my books.” And I do. I think he was a little surprised by my squee nonetheless. Note to self: Don’t weird out your foreign publishers.
Closer to home, this seems to be the week for publications to be catching up on their reviews of Zoe’s Tale, because there’s another one today, this time from the good graces of Strange Horizons. It features lots of cites and is generally positive:
[W]hat emerges most successfully from this novel is the experience of a teenager coming into her own as she faces extraordinary circumstances and is called upon, basically, to save the world, which is probably both a common fantasy and a common worst nightmare of teenagers everywhere… all of this is really fun to read about, because John Scalzi is at heart an entertainer, and he is at his best when he maps out big plots and sends his characters careening through them.
Indeed: “Hey, you! Here’s a paper clip and some string! Go save the world!” See, that’s fun.
wow that is an awesome cover. Now if only they could make a movie based on the first book… and make it look like that :D
The ships look like Raptors. Frakkin’ cool…
Since you frequently republish the good reviews, I was wondering about your attitude towards bad reviews. Do you read them carefully, scan them quickly, trash them, or what?
Just a thought.
As the page was loading, I was wondering why Shrek was on the cover. Looked at once the picture was actually finished, makes much more sense and it is a really good cover.
Ron Thorton:
If I see a bad review I generally read it, but I generally don’t feel obliged to call other people’s attention to them, no (unless it’s interesting or amusing in some way). That said, I think it’s pretty clear I’m not overly concerned by bad reviews.
That *is* nice cover art. Myself, I think the ships look like a pelican made babies with a Banshee, but I got into Halo in a big way, so I probably would think that.
Love the attention to detail, the weathering on the suit and the oddly expressive alien eyes. Nice one, on toast.
Hi, first time posting.
Its seems funny to me; I’ve used the covers of your books as an example of how Spanish covers are on average better than the UK/US covers of same sci-fi books :-P
Given the delays, the fact that much good material never gets translated, the bad quality of translations – not Minotauro, though, they are quite professional – and the few native Science Fiction books, it is kind of weird, in a “we rock at something? awesome!” way :-)
Under the mutated title, one should add to the preface something about how on Roanoke Island, NC, the Cittie of Raleigh was deserted, plundered, and surrounded “with a high pallisado of great trees, with cortynes and flankers, very fort-like”. On one of the palisades, John White found the single word “CROATOAN” carved into the surface, and the letters “CRO” carved into a nearby tree.
@6
You beat me too it, I thought the pelican and banshee had mated to produce that cover art offspring.
Definitely one of my favorite visualizations of the OMW characters. The squee is understandable.
I like that ship design. It reminds me of a handheld Tetris game I once had…
That symbol in the background wouldn’t be the insignia of the Colonial Union, would it?
La Ultima Colonia perhaps?
Another Babelfish cautionary tale. Put in The Last Colony, translate to Spanish, take the result La Colonia Pasada and translate back to English to get The Past Colony.
I did that after checking my original notion of what it should be. I think Babelfish didn’t like it because I didn’t put an accent on the U.
Del dicho al hecho hay mucho trecho.
Bah! Back in my day we didn’t have the luxury of paperclips and string when we had to save the world. Kids these days are spoiled.